pearls

Every Wednesday, two of my sisters-in-law tote all of their kids and one of their fathers-in-law to a local fast food restaurant for lunch. Frequently, my mother-in-law is also in attendance. When my schedule permits, I also meet them there. It is an incredibly full hour of visiting, laughing and a round of twenty questions from my little fry hoarders niece and nephews. Today, I was able to lunch with them and, as always, it was very entertaining.

During the round of twenty questions from one of my nephews, I was asked about my pearl necklace and how pearls are made. I preceded to tell him a preschool version of how pearls are made: God takes some oysters, puts some sand in their mouths and closes them really tight for a long time, when the mouths open back up the pearls are there. Apparently, this story was a very good one, as I was asked to repeat it four times (while answering questions like, "where did the sand come from?" "Was God wearing shoes in the sand?")

During my recitations, it occurred to me how God is so amazing to take something like sand and transform it into such a treasure like a pearl. What is even more amazing is how He can take something like me and transform it into something that is viewed as worthy of spending eternity with Him. I would have stayed perfectly content with the little analogy that God just revealed to me, but then He had to go and take it a step further when one of my sisters-in-law made the observation, "Pearls are made from spit and sand, how cool is that?...Hey! We were made from spit and sand, too!"

Yep, so there you go. We are pearls...